In a small ante-chamber, scarcely twelve feet in width, communicating with the solitary chamber of the queen--solitary, for the notorious profligacy and insolent neglect of Darnley had left her an almost widowed wife--the board was spread, glittering with gold and crystal, and covered with the delicacies of the evening meal. The beautiful queen, freed from the galling chains of ceremony, her robes of state thrown by, and attired in the elegant simplicity of a private lady, sat there--her lovely features beaming with condescension and with unaffected pleasure, conversing joyously with those whom she had selected from her court as worthiest of her especial favor. Bitterly, cruelly had she been deceived in the character of him whom she had in truth made a king; for whose gratification she had almost exceeded the rights of her prerogative, and given deep offence to her haughty and suspicious nobles; having discovered, when too late, that, while possessed of all the graces and accomplishments that constitute an elegant and agreeable admirer, Henry Darnley was deficient, miserably deficient, in all that can render a man eligible as a friend and husband. Deserted, neglected, outraged in a woman’s tenderest point, almost before the first month of her nuptials had elapsed, the flattering dream had passed away which had promised years of happy, peaceful communion with one loved and loving partner. Ever preferring the society of any other fair one to that of the lovely being to whom he should have been bound by every tie of love and gratitude, the king had early left his disconsolate bride to pine in total seclusion, or to seek for recreation in the society of those whose qualities of mind, if not their rank, might render them fit companions for her solitude; and she, poor victim of a brutal husband, and unhappy mistress of a turbulent and warlike nation, fell blindly but most innocently into the snare of her unrelenting enemies. Of all who were around her person, Rizzio alone was such by habits, education, and accomplishments, as could lend attraction to the circle of a gay and youthful queen. Accustomed, from her earliest youth, to the elegant and polished manners of the French nobility, the rude and illiterate barons--with whom the highest grade of knowledge was the marshalling of a host for the battle-field, and the highest merit the fighting in the front rank when marshalled--could appear to her in no other light than that of brutal and uneducated savages. What wonder, then, that a youth well skilled as David Rizzio in all the arts and elegances most suitable to a noble cavalier, handsome withal and courteous, attentive even to adoration to her slightest wish, and ever contrasting his cultivated mind with the untutored rudeness of the warrior-lords of Scotland, should have been admitted to a degree of intimacy by his forsaken mistress, innocent, undoubtedly, and pardonable, even should we be disposed to admit that it was imprudent?